Under poisoning, doctors understand the ingress into the human body of a substance harmful to he alth (and sometimes to life) - poison. It can penetrate through the respiratory tract, be swallowed, absorbed through the skin, enter directly into the bloodstream with injections. In everyday life, poisoning means the ingestion of toxins with poor-quality food, as well as the ingestion of inedible liquids (household chemicals or cosmetics / perfumes, acids, alkalis, s alts of heavy metals). Therefore, first aid for poisoning will be considered precisely in the event of the latter situations.
- The first thing to do is stop the poison from entering the body. This means that you need to stop using the substance with food or drink, wash the poison off the skin, take the person away from the room in which the toxic product was sprayed.
- Emergency care for poisoning is to extract as much poison from the body as possible before it is absorbed intoblood. This is the most important point in such lesions, which is based on what substance and how it got to the person.
a) If the poisoning occurred with a poor-quality food product, a mandatory event is gastric lavage. It is not necessary in this case to add potassium permanganate to the water, plain water is enough - not warm, but cool (so that it is not absorbed, but comes out with the toxin). The main thing is that the substance is washed out as best as possible: drink a liter of water - press on the root of the tongue, provoking vomiting,
and so several times. Also, the first medical aid for poisoning is to give an enema (cool water). This is exactly where you can add a sorbent (preparations such as Smecta, Atoxil, White Coal are best, but you can also use Activated Charcoal, ground into powder).
b) If the defeat occurred by inhalation of an aerosol, it is pointless to wash the stomach. In this case, breathing fresh air will help as first aid for poisoning. In the future, a person may need to inhale the oxygen mixture, sometimes even through a ventilator.
c) If a person has swallowed acid or alkali, it is generally impossible to wash the stomach, causing vomiting: the reverse flow of the damaging substance can damage or cause more harm to the esophagus, stomach, pharynx, up to the formation of perforations in these organs.
In this case, you can drink astringents and enveloping substances: 0.5% tannin solution, a mixture of starch or flour (70grams per liter of water) or raw chicken egg whites (less preferred, as you can get infected with salmonellosis). If there are no such substances, drink a sorbent: if there is only "Activated Charcoal", then 10 tablets of this medicine should be crushed into powder and drunk with a glass or two of cool water.
Then take a laxative (at least sunflower oil). Setting an enema in this case is also justified.
3. The toxin absorbed into the blood must be neutralized. To do this, you need to call an ambulance and go to the hospital where there are antidotes - substances that, reacting with poison (these are mainly drugs), form compounds that are non-toxic to the body, which are excreted further with urine, feces and breath (depending on from the type of poison).
4. First aid for poisoning is also to ensure and maintain vital functions. This is resuscitation: indirect heart massage, breathing from mouth to nose (preferably) or from mouth to mouth. If, as a result of poisoning, clinical death is recorded (that is, there is no heartbeat), breathing has stopped, and also if a person is worried about pain behind the sternum, gastric lavage and an enema are done after rendering assistance. If your heart hurts, you need to take drops of "Corvalol" or "Valocordin" or a tablet of "Validol".
Loss of consciousness is not a contraindication for gastric and intestinal lavage.
5. A person should drink enough liquid: fractionally, in small sips. The calculation is: 40ml/kg body weight plus the amount of fluid lost through vomiting and diarrhea.
When do I need to call an ambulance?
- If the poisoning was caused by acid, alkali or other toxic compound (not expired food).
- If the victim is a child or an elderly person.
- If there was a violation of consciousness (even if short-term), pain behind the sternum. If you were able to properly carry out resuscitation yourself, you need to call not just an ambulance, but an intensive care team.
